Category: DIY

I joined the aero design team at U.D. in the fall of 2017 and helped design the first version of a solar powered electric airplane for long endurance applications. Our design included a camera for surveillance applications and a data logger with an intelligent flight control system for pattern holds and other pilot hands off or autonomous functions. Our spring 2018 semester was spent building and modifying the plane until its maiden flight. Unfortunately the landing of the maiden flight damaged the wing more significantly than we realized and the wing failed under typical loading during the competition flight. Load testing before each flight and spare wings will have to be used in the future to prevent this type of error from reoccurring. Below are some images and videos of the plane and its flights.

Recently I have become interested in flight/aerodynamics and while my schooling is oriented in mechanical design, it doesn’t really delve into this realm of knowledge or design of aerodynamics, unless I Continue reading →

Gregg Stock is the Senior Analog Engineer and Co-Founder of a company that makes digital effects units for guitar and general music use. This interview, done by Daft Paragon, is a pretty cool insight into some of how he approaches the discussion of analog vs. digital audio processing in the music world and obviously in the design world. These types of people are incredibly motivating to me because as a musician and electronics tinkerer, I some times get caught up in these paradoxes that revolve around what “should be” and I end up losing sight of what “can be” with my projects. The truth is, if Gregg Stock thinks that digital will soon be harder and harder to distinguish from analog, then ignoring coding and DSP processing projects is probably a bad call.

This video came at a time when I was starting to make videos, ironically, and it helped me grasp a larger idea than just “get nice camera, get nice scene, shoot nice scene, have nice footage for cool video”. I always felt like making videos or movies had a deeper motive than just aesthetic value but was never really able to comprehend what it was. I had started conversations with some of my friends who have been making films for sometime and the key ingredient was always “the story”. It came full circle after I saw this short video of some pretty successful film makers and it really gave me a tangible grasp on telling stories with movies.